Pete and Repete Were Sitting in a Boat.

Last October, we thought we had picked out our wedding bands. Fast forward a few months, and I started having major doubts. It is important to us that our rings not be apart of the overall wedding budget—i.e. we each want to personally pay for each others’ rings. My art-hippie-student-self can’t afford to drop $2,000 on a band, and I wasn’t keen on the idea of begging my better half to spend that much on a band if I were only able to afford a quarter of that price. So, it was back to the drawing board.
Because Tiffany & Co. has little-to-no white gold wedding bands, I knew we would need to meander away from our jewelry mecca. Having our bands in platinum, especially his, jacks the price up astronomically, so white gold it is. After countless frustrating Saturdays filled with rings that we were “meh” over, we decided on two bands from Mayors & Birks.

They were white gold, half the price of the Tiffany rings, and very pretty. My band was a little “squared” in comparison to my engagement ring, but it still looked very nice next to it. “Very nice” and “pretty” and other things I told myself about the ring started to wear off—I realized that I was ambivalent about a ring that Mr. Scissors would be spending a whole heckuvalotta dough on. Make no mistake, the ring is wonderful, but it just didn’t feel 100% right. Insert some bridal “you know when it’s the one” cliche phrases, and you’ll know where I stand reasoning-wise. It just wasn’t… there.

Enter serendipity, a random Google search, and a ring that I fell head-over-heels in love with—both in looks and price.

Unfortunately for our heroes, both of the rings cannot be purchased at Whiteflash, because Mr. Scissors has giant hands. Whiteflash only makes their mens’ rings up to a size 10. (I should note that it is not unfortunate that Mr. Scissors has giant hands. I am quite a fan of his large-handedness. Sexy and whatnot…) I’ve gotten over my “OUR RINGS HAVE TO BE FROM THE SAME PLACE OMG!” weirdness, and so his ring will be coming from the lovely folks over at Blue Nile.

6mm, white gold, comfort fit, way under $1,000, and comes in Mr. Scissors’ ring size. We are big fans.

So there you have our probably-entirely-too-long-winded-nobody-really-cares “finding the bands” story. From start to finish it has taken eight months of looking, deciding, whining, and mind-changing, but we’re ending up with rings we both love and can afford. Moral of the story? If you’re having trouble finding something that fits your taste AND budget, keep on truckin’, and hopefully you’ll find something fabulous and affordable.

How did you approach ring shopping, and how did you decide on your bands? Was finding the perfect pair as easy as pie or a lot of lather-rinse-repeat-back-to-the-drawing-board?